Indian Mutual Funds’ Assets Cross Rs. 20 lakh cr

The highest ever inflow
of Rs. 20,362 crore in equity-oriented schemes of mutual funds has pushed the
Indian MF industry’s asset under management to Rs. 20.59 lakh crore in August,
2017

The net inflow into
equity schemes more than doubled compared to last year, reflecting the
structural uptrend driven by an improvement in financial savings and investors’
shift from physical to financial savings.

With the latest cuts in
bank deposit interest rates, investors are taking to the stock market through
equity and balanced schemes. Net inflows through Systematic Investment Plans
(SIPs) also hit an all-time high of Rs. 5,206 crore in August 2017.

In fact, inflows through
SIPs rose 44% to Rs. 23,750 crore in the last 6 months. The industry on an
average added 8.55 lakh SIP accounts with a ticket size of about Rs. 3,275 per
account.

With strong retail
participation and high net-worth individuals, the AUM of the mutual funds
industry increased 3% to Rs. 20.59 lakh crore in August from Rs. 19.97 lakh
crore in the previous month, according the Association of Mutual Funds in India
(AMFI).

Direct-plans-of-mutual-funds-low-cost-higher-returns

Over the past 3 years,
the industry AUM has doubled from Rs. 10 lakh crore.

The total folio count
increased 2.4% to 6.08 crore in August,
2017 according to SEBI data.

The growth was primarily
on the back of 10.9 lakh new folios added to the equity category and 2.36 lakh
new folios to the balanced category.

Being a popular
tax-saving instrument among investors, equity-linked saving schemes (ELSSs)
alone added 1.21 lakh new folios between April and August, 2017. However, the folio count dropped by 3,580 and
1,546 in Gold ETFs and Fund-of-Funds investing overseas, respectively, from
July-end levels.

Investments from beyond
the top 15 (B15) cities accounted for 17.6 per cent of the total industry AUM
in August,2017.

In the past 12 months,
B15 towns have witnessed AUM growth of 39% or Rs. 1.04 lakh crore in August to
touch Rs. 3.70 lakh crore, against Rs. 2.66 lakh crore a year ago.